As professional fields, recreation and leisure have contributed to the health and wellness of countless participants around the world. Whether through families visiting parks to create better bonds with each other; tourists learning about different cultures and ways of living through guided experiences; or individuals discovering increased mental health through nature and outdoor exploration, most people can see the benefits that recreation brings.
But recreation as a field is often misunderstood or dismissed as a legitimate profession. "Are there jobs in those fields? Can you make a living doing that?" Maybe the Parks and Rec TV show shares some of the blame, but becoming a professional in recreation seems to not have the same allure or perception of legitimacy as other careers.
The Recreation Futures Lab at NC State University is bringing together students and professionals to create recreation experiences that augment traditional views of recreation with these guiding principles:
- Rather than relying on a physical park, event venue, nature space, or in-person activities, Recreation Futures challenges students to consider how potential participants can be engaged through digital platforms, including virtual reality, social media, and metaverse technologies.
- Projects in the lab give students transferrable skills that can be used in recreation, but also across career fields of the future. Some of these skills include increased spatial reasoning, AI literacy and fundamental computer use (despite popular conceptions, most students are not digital natives).
- As assignments in courses, lab projects give students tangible evidence of their work and skills (e.g., virtual reality projects they've created, recreation program plans they've designed, or 3D facilities models they've scanned and visualized). For students who want to leverage their work further, these projects make excellent undergraduate research projects and can lead to part-time and full-time jobs.
- Most projects include collaboration with professionals in recreation and leisure fields or interaction with physical world recreation destinations and activities. While the lab is focused on the future of recreation, its grounded in the present.
If you're a student interested in a research project with the lab or a professional and you'd like to propose a lab project collaboration, please email me to chat!